The Duck Inn Pub & Kitchen

This watering hole has become a place where all ages can get a meal that won't break the bank. Simon Thomsen reports.

There was a time when pubs were pubs and you knew where you drank. They sold $10 steaks as big as a copper's boot and just as tough. You talked about sport, rather than watched it and you could tell what state you were in by the beer.

Then things went all metrosexual and your local watering hole was gussied up. Out went the tiles, in came Florence Broadhurst wallpaper and Thai beef salads, alongside the rise of entertainment centres such as The Mean Fiddler and Ivy.

But I don't want a family meal at my local to set me back $200. Enter The Duck Inn Pub & Kitchen. It walks a happy middle ground, skirting around old pub traditions with a space that's more wine bar/lounge room. There's a beer garden downstairs and the dining room reminds me of a breezy Queenslander with its louvered windows and lofty outlook.

No wonder The Duck Inn is full of well-dressed 30-somethings and us older folk, with kids in tow, sipping wine and eulogising about the days when our prowess with beer rivalled David Boon's.

The Duck Inn is the first pub to ask me if dinner is "pre-theatre" (the Seymour Centre is across the road) when I book.

The menu gets a little fancy without being smartypants. It has an eye on trends, with plenty of tucker served up on wooden boards, sliders (mini burgers), wagyu beef in the main burgers, and the meat pie is "deconstructed".

Entree options are limited. Soup, $8, oysters, $18, or a tapas tasting platter, $24, that's more 1980s antipasti with its jumble of semi-dried tomatoes, green olives, pickled onions, rocket, chorizo and toasted sourdough. A word of warning chef. I'm not sure why dates were included, but please don't put them next to the anchovies. They're not natural allies.

I'd suggest the best option is to head here for a single course, perhaps one of the four burgers, $18, for a night out. They do a decent job with the "classic Oz" with beetroot, cheddar, tomato, barbecue relish and a fat, still moist patty, plus fries. Dinner for $25 a head, including a glass of wine hits my wallet's sweet spot.

The service, young, sweet and rather gorgeous, keeps a busy night ticking along, although the kitchen can slow under the onslaught.

That deconstructed pie, $22, a beef, bacon, mushroom and beer stew, looks good on a wooden board with its puff pastry roof, mash and smear of bright green pea puree, but there's an unintentional smokiness that suggests the meat caught in the pot.